Could Contamination Avoidance Be an Endpoint That Protects the Environment? An Overview on How Species Respond to Copper, Glyphosate, and Silver Nanoparticles

Abstract

The use of non-forced multi-compartmented exposure systems has gained importance in the assessment of the contamination-driven spatial avoidance response. This new paradigm of exposure makes it possible to assess how contaminants fragment habitats, interfering in the spatial distribution and species’ habitat selection processes. In this approach, organisms are exposed to a chemically heterogeneous scenario (a gradient or patches of contamination) and the response is focused on identifying the contamination levels considered aversive for organisms. Despite the interesting results that have been recently published, the use of this approach in ecotoxicological risk studies is still incipient. The current review aims to show the sensitivity of spatial avoidance in non-forced exposure systems in comparison with the traditional endpoints used in ecotoxicology under forced exposure. To do this, we have used the sensitivity profile by biological groups (SPBG) to offer an overview of the highly sensitive biological groups and the species sensitive distribution (SSD) to estimate the hazard concentration for 5% of the species (HC5). Three chemically different compounds were selected for this review: copper, glyphosate, and Ag-NPs. The results show that contamination-driven spatial avoidance is a very sensitive endpoint that could be integrated as a complementary tool to ecotoxicological studies in order to provide an overview of the level of repellence of contaminants. This repellence is a clear example of how contamination might fragment ecosystems, prevent connectivity among populations and condition the distribution of biodiversity.

Connections among Land Use, Water Quality, Biodiversity of Aquatic Invertebrates, and Fish Behavior in Amazon Rivers

“…However, the concentrations used are often not environmentally relevant, exceeding those found in natural environments, and organisms are exposed in a confined manner during the assays. These tests assume that organisms in natural ecosystems are forced to remain exposed to contaminants, without the possibility of escape [25]. A new and more realistic approach has been used in recent years, where bioindicator organisms are exposed in a multi-compartment system [26][27][28][29][30], enabling exposure to different contamination scenarios, with the objective of identifying areas that are more attractive or repellent.…”